WHAT transparent lies are you telling yourself to justify the necessary shortcuts to get through another week of parenting?
‘Minecraft teaches my kids teamwork’
And engineering, and how to manage livestock, and even coding. It’s definitely positive because they can play it together, even if they do seem to be either killing pandas or blowing each others’ weird blocky roofless houses up with TNT.
‘They get their five fruit and veg at school’
It’s important for children to get their five-a-day which is why school presumably does it. And surely they use the best quality organic stuff, don’t they? Because they need good GCSE results? There’s no way they just give them cheesy chips and claim that counts? That’s your job.
‘Boredom helps develop their imaginations’
You could constantly offer them craft activities, play stimulating boardgames with them and engage them in intellectual debate, but you’re on your phone. Being left alone to do nothing will stimulate their imaginations and they’ll probably become writers or artists or inventors, all because of your benign neglect.
‘They wouldn’t be into extracurricular activities anyway’
School offers plenty of clubs: movie club, reading club, colouring club, all of which give you a 4pm pick-up. So there’s no need for Brownies, Scouts, football, piano lessons, street dance or crafts to take up their whole evening. It’s not that you are too tight to pay for lessons and too lazy to drive them there and back.
‘That WhatsApp group is about homework’
Your daughter’s constantly pinging WhatsApp notifications? That’s probably a group she’s in focused on homework, achievement and learning, and she and all her studious friends are simply swapping tips on how to best complete their project on the Peterloo Massacre. They’re not cyberbullying some poor cow to shreds or anything.
